Mike Beale over at the Norfolk Wildlife blog, link to right, writes in answer to my query about the white moth bottom right "That's a White Plume Moth you have there, Its wings are deeply divided into several 'fingers', each of which is finely feathered, or plumed."
Two little box-tree step guardians get their annual haircut, I've made a start on the left hand one, taking about two-and-a-half inches back, basically taking-off the matt, herb-green new growth and taking it back to the gloss olive-green old leaves.
Job done!
The Tools...
Sorting out all the recent acquisitions of Airfix small scale, most of which have come in mixed lots from here and there (this is actually an intermediate 'sort' as the bags in the box contain only the pickings of the last year or so), when I was drawn to a coincidence involving the Afrika Korps...
Two of the type 2 figures seem to have been painted in the same style/at the same time as some of the type 1, meaning they are almost certainly the 'semi-rare' (less than common!) two replacement cavities from the 'transitional' issue.
The reason I show them is not to crow (although I did get two sets!!!!), but to point out that about two years ago these were issued with the same magazine in Gold plastic, and about 3 weeks later they were followed by Silver Cybermen, sooo; If they are following a free gift 'cycle' look out for Cybermen any day now?
Not really a 'Collectable' but something I'm fond of, I carved this by hand from a piece of Marble I ploughed up in 1983, the plough left some huge gouges in the surface which I sanded out by spending a hour or so rubbing it on the Patio while I had my after work cigarette and cup of tea! After a week or so it was half the depth it had started, but smooth on both sides.
Top left is a busy Bumble Bee, to the right is a caterpillar covered in parasitic beetles of some sort, I have to say I killed the beetles, which was probably not the right thing to do, but I felt I'd rather have another butterfly in the garden!
Large White Butterfly who wouldn't open for me, but like the Orange Tip the other day is almost nicer to look at closed!
This shows the 8 Animals as issued in 1972 (the date I couldn't tie down in the previous article?), but raises the questions of where Ratcliffe gets his list of 16 animals if there were only another 8? Why if this date is correct (it appeared in TV Comic and Look-In Sep/Oct '71 in one of two layouts) did they carry a set of 8 animals the same as the 1971 set, but remoulded, only to re-issue them again as a set of 16 later in the decade? And/or; Were the set of 16 taken from some of the smaller animals issued in Europe as Bubble-gum premiums as I suggested last time, or not issued by Kellogg's at all?
Also turning up in the last few weeks are this lot of vaguely HO/OO copies of Britains 54mm Zoo Animals, they are marked with a faint HONGKONG and probably came in Christmas Crackers of the 'Budget' variety.
Here we see Sphinxes for Egypt, the upper one is a touristy thing from a museum gift shop by an unknown maker, here being fought over by a couple of Caesar's Mycenaean troops, what they're doing in Egypt is anyone's guess, but they looked the part and were the first thing to hand!
The Romano-Greek period is much easier to accommodate as there are plenty of figures to paint-up from the larger scales as I have done here - on the right - with a Britains Herald Trojan. Figures are Quaker Gladiators also issued by Tom Smith and I'll be covering these soon, but PSR will have them first.
Finally a fine piece of Victorian/Wilhelmian colonial corporate town-center statuary, in this case from something like a Polly Pocket set, it needs a good paint and weathering to make it more presentable, but again you could use a 40-70mm mounted figure to produce something much better, or indeed an animal, imagine a big bear on it's hind legs in some German town as your Shermans thunder past!
If you enlarge it and print it out, you can pin it next to the PC and it'll always be there when you need it. The important thing to remember is the 'closing code' needs to have the forward slash before the a,b,i, or u. Otherwise you will turn the rest of the text, article or comment into a hot link or underline it all!
Well, that Hedgehog I woke in November while re-building the sheds, came and forgave me the other evening, just as I drew up in my new (old!) car, so I jammed-on the anchors and shot out with the camera ready and got a couple of good shots off before he/she (I'm sure it's a 'she' but have no idea why!) dived under the hedge behind!
Driving up the lane the other lunchtime these lot were crossing the road, so again; Brakes on, pocket, camera, and got this half-decent long-shot as they followed the hedge-line at the other side of the field.
These were all over the place about a week-and-a-half ago, most were hanging out of Holly trees in a heavily wooded area. while several ended-up on my jumper! One was on a lime tree having a good nosh, and the other was climbing an ash, don't know what they are - could be a moth, or one of the Whites? Looking at the book it could be a Small Heath or one of the Browns...
These are the calves of a rare breed a Farmer has in a field over by one of my clients places near Brightwalton, they did look even sweeter three weeks ago, little four-legged baby-bears, but they are starting to look like cows now! Couldn't get a photo the first time I saw them. I think they are 'Highland Long-horns' but I'm no cattle expert...
Airfix, and their partner in the US (MPC) produced quite a number of vac-forms over the years, and indeed are doing so again. This is from the Battlefront play-set El Alamien, Allied Attack Force, and is presented - for your ridicule - as painted by my younger self, some 30 odd years ago! In front of which you can see two plaster-of-paris moulds I took of the revetments, in order I should protect a few more AFV's from the German Paratroop Officer (who was always 'last man standing'!), the funny thing about taking mouldings from Vac-forms is; they end up with better detail, as vac-forms are 'pulled' onto a former (by vacuum - of course!) so end up with the finer detail of the master on the underside, consequently taking a negative cast provides better mouldings with less rounding/smoothing-off of detail.
More Airfix, more plaster casts, more ridicule to be poured on my teenage colour schemes! The beauty of these plaster moulds was that as/when they got chipped (or miscast) I just brushed in a bit more mud or dirt, and when they broke, I could either glue them or make them into a smaller defence work, hence the little one-man thing on the left-hand end. These are all taken from the storage sheds and Sand-bagged post in the Forward Command Post (CP) set.
Atlantic were also a prolific maker of 'value-added' bases, and painted theirs to boot! If you call that 'painting'? These are from the medium-sized sets of Wild West, and were designed to fit together as they are photographed. Inside the fold-out cover of the box, there is an illustration suggesting a 1E and 1F to come, as far as I know, they have never seen the light of day?
Variations of 1A, note how the upper one has had a better defined paint job than the lower one, these look - upon a quick glance - to have been airbrushed, but closer inspection reveals they have been done with sponge in the traditional way, Messerschmitt fuselage uppers - oh I remember it well, grey finger-nails for a week!...with a duck-egg blue undercoat...the fingers as well as the fuselage!!!
One of the smaller play-sets from the 'modern' sets, there were umpteen of these in all sizes, I'm showing this one as it was meant to be cut into even smaller vac-formlettes! as can be seen in the arrowed flier. Note also how the vac-forms in the flier are a darn-sight better painted than the ones that left the factory...disappointment being another good reason for eventual bankruptcy!
Bellona set on the left, this is one of the smaller sets from Micro Mould Plastics (Unifax group), and they have appeared in various header-cards over the years, all white, and green that I know of and were sold as Bellona, Mico Mold, and Almark, they also supplied some to Roco Minitanks. I've recently seen it said Bellona were 'Always in a dark brown colour', as will become apparent further down the post, they actually came in a wide verity of colours, from pure white and grey to dark olive covering most shades of sand and fawn on the way! I'm also pretty sure the upper cottage of the two was copied by Skytrex in 1:300 scale lead!
To the left are a couple of Battle-Ho-Rama's from Efka, which I am pretty sure is a Belgian company, Unlike Battleground, these are all straight copies on Bellona ideas, tweaked to be less than identical. On the right we see the Bellona 'Small Bridge' with the Efka copy - Campaign Bridge with 2 machine-gun posts - behind, their walls, tents and gun-positions are all equally similar, and the 'Albert Canal' base in the bigger bag is clearly aping Bellona's 'Canal Wharf' set.
Of the various vac-form companies, Bellona seem to have been the most prolific, both in number of sets (40 or more in the final list) and in production, model shops still had large quantities of these to shift in the late '90's. Top right shows a couple of roofed bunkers, quite a few of both Bellona's and Efka's pieces were of this 'constructional' type, they called for a steady hand with the knife/scissors!
The Bellona tentage, I seem to have lost the pup-tents that came with this set, but they were a bit shite! I added flaps to the bell-tents (a common design dating from before the Crimean War until well after WWII, and taking in most of the main campaigns of the Colonial period and the ACW.
Here we have a few odds and sods; Top left is what I suspect is the insert for the box-packaging of a 1950's set of toy soldiers, or a wagon or such-like, being a sort of trench, open at both ends (07-03-2017 - it is - Cané of Italy trench, issued with 5/6 figures in a blister above it's own, on a backing card). Next to it - in black - is what I thought was an Amera moulding, being in a heavier gauge plastic than the older makes, however it's not on their website, so I guess it isn't, however it looks quite modern so someone will know, JNT? Far right is something I know I've got somewhere in the collection/archive, but just because it's supposed to be there doesn't mean I can find it! I think it's from the Esci board-game/play-sets of a few years ago but don't quote me.
Here we have the vac-formed mould for Linka walls and European style cobbled pavement, Linka being carried by Merit at one point, and - I believe - still going, now in the States and with a truncated range. They also used vac-forming for the Steeple mould and as part of the rather complicated Tower moulds.
Guildford, Surrey, these are to be found behind the Travelers Lodge down at Ladymead, on the footpath to the River Wey. In the valley itself, where the main German Trust was expected, they follow the continental fashion of having shorter ones at the front (facing the East-coast as you look along the downs) so that any vehicle failing to see them all covered in brambles would ride-up them and get 'beached', while on this steep slope - unsuitable for vehicles, they are all of the same height, as they are to force infantry to weave their way through them under 'effective fire' from brick pill-boxes and entrenchments (now overgrown) set further back.
